American History X: Finding Derek
by Yoyo09542
Summary: Imagining of Derek's life after Danny's death, through the eyes of a mixed-race girl from the UK who becomes increasingly obsessed with the enigmatic 'Derry' she meets in a bar and whose past she slowly uncovers.
1. Chapter 1: Identity

***AN: Of course I don't own Derek Vinyard, but since I first watched this film nearly 20 years ago, his is a character I just couldn't get out of my head. Eventually all the futures I imagined for him have coalesced into this story and I'm finally sharing it with you. It's the first story I've ever shared, so please be helpful (and kind!). ***

Chapter 1: Identity

It was a week until her birthday, and Niamh was determined that this time she was going to make sure Derry came out to party with her. Every time she asked him, he found an excuse, some reason he could not join her and her college friends on their rowdy nights out round the town. Even heavily laden hints about movies she wanted to see, or local sights she wished she had someone to show her fell on studiously deaf ears. She knew she should let it go, he clearly was not comfortable taking their relationship outside of the bar, beyond being her boss, but she still could not accept that the intense, irresistible pull she felt towards him was not reciprocated.

So she had planned this all out. She knew Lamont was due to be working that night, she'd checked the rotas, and picked a particularly quiet night. No ball games, no student events, just a midweek school night, so letting her and her friends take over the bar for the night would barely make a dent in takings. If Derry wouldn't come to her, then she would come to him and find a way to finally make him drop his guard and have some fun. And if she could be part of the fun he would have, well… that would just be the best birthday present ever.

It had been nearly six months now since she had first walked into his bar and within days she found herself falling slowly, inexorably under his spell, until every waking moment was spent thinking about him. She promised herself, if he made an excuse this time, that would be it; she would have to accept that he was not interested and stop trying. Even though the logical part of her brain knew that was the right thing to do, even thinking that thought gave her a stab of pain and renewed her determination to make this work.

Niamh showered and took care dressing for work. She stood scrutinising herself critically in the mirror; her wavy dark hair was freshly washed and the summer halter-neck dress she was wearing was just the right side of being too girlish, showing a glimpse of her breasts from the side when she lifted her arms. She remembered the last time she wore it and flushed at the memory. She had caught Derry looking at her from the corner of her eye, as reached up to get a glass from the shelf. He turned so quickly she couldn't be certain, but surely there had been a glint of desire in his usually so well-guarded and unreadable eyes. Unbidden, the thought of what it would be like to have him slide his hand inside her dress and caress her breast made her catch her breath.

Her desire for him was constantly catching her out like that. It was an intense, heady longing, but with no way of finding release from it, it built to a peak of pain she found at times hard to bear. She rested her head against the cool of the mirror and tried to control her thoughts and slowly bring her breathing under control.

She remembered the day she had first seen him and almost wished, not for the first time, that she had walked away then. She had just arrived from England to take up her place as a doctoral student at the university, and was looking for work to try and supplement the meagre bursary she had fought hard to win. She saw the advert in the window of the Irish bar on campus and figured that having a mother who came from the Old Country and a name like Niamh might count as better qualifications than the suitcase full of prizes and certificates that had not yet helped her find a job in this new country.

She knew she didn't look like an American's idea of an Irish girl, though; her looks more clearly shaped by her father's Jamaican ancestry than that of her mother's Donegal roots. She toyed with putting on an Irish accent – having been brought up by her mother and her grandmother in South London she was familiar enough with the brogue to be able to make a good enough fist of it to fool most people, but decided against it. She'd wasted years pretending to be people she wasn't, trying to find an identity that would be accepted and she was determined not to start again now. She breathed in, squared her shoulders and pushed open the door.

A strong-looking man with short hair and a neat goatee beard stood behind the bar. He wore a long-sleeved black t-shirt pulled tight over a muscular frame, tucked into the neat waist-band of a pair of formal trousers. It was a slightly incongruous look for a student town, out of kilter with either the common slacker look of the crowds, or even the preppy casual expensiveness of the wealthier students. He looked to be in his late twenties, but seemed somehow as if he had stepped out of a different generation to Niamh.

He looked up as she walked in.

'Sorry,' he said, 'we don't open for another half hour'.

'I know.' Niamh replied. 'I'm here about the job?'

She tried to keep the tremor out of her voice and emulate the easy confidence she found so intimidating among the American students she'd met. A week full of rejections had eaten away at her self-belief and she faltered immediately when he turned fully to face her. The intense, almost fierce gaze from the sharp blue eyes under his knotted eyebrows made her begin to blush and she fought the urge to turn round and walk back out into the street.

'Oh,' he said. 'Okay, well I'm looking for someone who can start right away. What experience do you have?'

'Oh, I've done a lot of bar work,' lied Niamh, thinking to herself that a few nights pulling pints in the Union bar on campus back home nearly counted.

'And of course, I am Irish, like, properly Irish from Ireland, not from South Boston!' she added. It had meant to come out jokingly, but she realised immediately it sounded snide and wished she could take it back.

He looked at her quizzically and she braced herself for the usual 'you don't _look_ very Irish' line. Most Americans' idea of Ireland seemed to have stopped sometime around 1950; anyone claiming to be Irish without milk white skin, red hair, freckles and looking like an extra from the 3rd class cabin in _The Titanic_ must be an imposter. She was surprised, then, when he said instead:

'You sound more English than Irish to me.'

'Oh,' she stammered. 'Well yes, I _was_ brought up in England, but my mum is from Donegal. We go there every year, though, and I even have an Irish passport.' God, what a stupid thing to say, she thought, getting more flustered.

She looked up and he seemed to be suppressing a smile, which made his eyes soften and transformed his severe look into something undeniably attractive. She pushed the thought out of her mind that he was trying not to laugh at her, and attempted to force a smile herself.

'What's your name?' he asked.

'Niamh,' she replied, immediately adding: 'So, it's pronounced Neve, but it's the Gaelic spelling: N I A…'

'M H' he finished for her. 'I bet that gets mispronounced a lot here!' he said, smiling again.

Her surprise at his quick acumen made her forget for a moment about her nerves.

'Not just here,' she admitted, 'it happened all the time growing up in London too. I spent my entire life at school trying to explain why I wasn't called Niyamhah. Even to the teachers!'

He laughed and she finally managed a real smile in return.

'So you seem to know a lot about Gaelic names. You must be Irish too?' she said, thinking how stupid that must have made her previous presumption seem.

'Nope.' he replied. 'Not as far as I know, anyways. But my name's Derry and that seems good enough to pass around here.'

He was still looking at her with those intense blue eyes that she found hard to meet, but she forced herself to hold his gaze and say:

'So, when can I start?'


	2. Chapter 2: The Past is a Foreign Country

Chapter 2: The Past is a Foreign Country

Derry woke early, as he did every morning. Sleep felt like an enemy most nights, one he tried to subdue but who fled from him and then, when finally captured, wreaked vengeance on him with violent, troubled dreams. Awake, his thoughts weren't much calmer but at least he could force them into submission so long as he kept busy. He got straight out of bed and went into the living room of his apartment, a room almost bare except for a weight bench, dumbbells and jump ropes which were neatly lined up against the wall.

He picked up a rope and started to jump, numbing the pain in his mind with the monotony of the exercise. Sometimes finding release took a long time, and he had to push himself almost to the point of collapse before the noises in his head would subside, and he would sink down, retching with effort, onto the floor. Today was a good day, though, and in just thirty minutes he was dripping with sweat and calm enough to face the world.

After eating breakfast and showering, he shaved, using the one small sliver of mirror in the apartment, which was propped up high above the bathroom sink at chin level to him. If he was careful, he could avoid seeing his reflection for days on end, and sometimes even began to believe that he was 'Derry'. When he did catch sight of his reflection, so familiar from mugshots and press stories, it was an unwelcome reminder of who he really was and that however far he ran, he could not escape his past.

Today, though, was still a good day, and he shaved around his closely cropped goatee without catching his own eyes in the mirror. There was a slight warmth in the air, even at this time in the morning, and the Californian in him couldn't help but feel his spirits lifted after the long New Hampshire winter. Still, he pulled on a long-sleeved shirt, as he did every day, over his ever-present undershirt.

His apartment was over the bar, and he let himself out of the door in the small kitchen and down the stairs to that led to the office area behind the bar. He put coffee on to brew and started on an inventory of stock. It was nearly the end of the college year, but there would be plenty of parties after final exams and then new students coming in for the summer programmes. He sighed; there was always plenty of demand for alcohol among the crowds of young people thronging around the campus. He would watch them all with a mixture of jealousy and censure, living carefree lives, devoted to studying and partying, seemingly oblivious to the suffering in the world beyond their college walls.

He heard the sound of keys rattling in the lock of the outer door; she was here early today. He schooled his expression into careful neutrality and took a deep breath before going through to the bar area. Niamh was standing in the doorway, just as she had that day, bringing a whiff of something alien and alluring in with her, which he should have known would only bring confusion and pain into his carefully ordered existence. She was wearing a light-coloured dress over a pair of jeans and he was glad to see she had a cardigan over the dress. Sometimes it was too much effort to keep his hard-won cool when she wore that kind of thing, straining to keep his eyes averted from the swelling curves and flashes of bare flesh that she almost seemed to deliberately flaunt in front of him. He shook his head to clear the thought; he knew it was good for business to have someone who looked and sounded like Niamh at the bar and her tips at the end of a night proved it. The few times they had run into each other outside of the bar, she was mostly swaddled in baggy sweats and hooded tops, hair scraped back and glasses on. It's a professional camouflage, he reminded himself, she's not doing it for you.

She smiled at him brightly, but there was something off, something too bright and somehow nervous in her smile.

'Hey,' she said. 'How was the weekend?'

'Good,' he replied. 'You know, busy.'

Busy, he was always busy.

'Well, things should be calming down now though, right?' she suggested, her smile still too fixed.

He shrugged, not sure what this was leading but slightly unsettled by her manner.

'Coffee?' he asked, heading back behind the bar.

'Sure,' she said, following him through the bar and into the staff room. He poured her a cup and winced when he turned round and noticed her cardigan was already off. Dammit, it was that dress again – the one that tied up around her supple neck, showing off her smooth back and a slipping dangerously to the side when she moved around. Today is a good day, he reminded himself. I've got this.

'You're here early,' he commented, focussing back on desk and the inventory papers. Her shift wasn't due to start until 11 on a Monday.

'Well, you know, I have to submit my first chapter next week so anything to get me out of the dorm,' she said with a smile.

Derry frowned. He was always taking her to task for indulging in pointless displacement activity when work on her PhD got too much for her. It frustrated him, she was so gifted, with such an agile mind that flew lightly and ably around complex topics and always managed to spot new arguments to take him by surprise. But she was always so disorganised and last minute about everything. She claimed she worked best when she was under time pressure so there was no point trying to do anything until the panic was on, but he found himself wishing he could make her be more disciplined. He realised she was looking at him intently, and that he was still frowning, so he smoothed his features into his usual impassive mask and returned to his papers.

'So, Der,' she said. 'Can I ask you something?'

It still jolted him when she shortened his name like that; Der was what Danny had always called him. He wished he'd asked her not to; it was disconcerting and pulled him back into the identity he was so desperate to escape. Sometimes his ears played tricks on him and he could swear she called him Derek, making his heart leap into his throat and a hot sweat prickle its way down his neck. It wasn't just the normal fear that his past could catch up with him, he'd lived for years now with the knowledge that his name was on the hit list of every Neo-Nazi hate group from here to Berlin. No, it was the idea that she of all people would uncover him, know who he really was, and see the monster beneath his carefully constructed façade of normality that made him feel sick to his stomach.

He glanced up and saw her looking questioningly at him.

'So?' she said. 'What do you think? Isn't it a great idea?'

He cursed himself inwardly for not paying attention.

'Umm, I guess it could be.'

He tried to sound non-committal.

'So it's a yes?' Her face lit up and she bounced towards him, and for a split second he thought she might be about to hug him. 'That's amazing, thank you, it's going to be so much fun!'

Shit, what had he just agreed to?

'I can't wait to bring everyone over so you can meet them,' she went on. 'I'm sure half of them are starting to think I'm making you up! It makes so much more sense to do it here than to go out somewhere where you don't know who'll be there and what the place might be like.'

'Um, yeah sure,' he said trying desperately to figure out what she meant and how to get out of this. Why would she bring people to his bar? And why would they want to meet him?

'So, um, explain to me again how this is going to work?' was the best he could come up with.

'Well, I was thinking because it's a Monday we won't be busy, so I can take the night off and go meet everyone and get ready. And then we can come here and just have the place to ourselves?' she asked. 'Hugo said he could bring his decks and do a DJ set, we can use the lights we use on open mic night, and Stefania said she would do a cake. I mean of course they would all have to buy their own drinks, but it should be about 30 of us so it wouldn't be much down on a normal Monday night, right?'

She was looking at him pleadingly, her eyes begging him not to disagree. He looked away desperately trying to think of a way of putting her off without looking like a total arsehole.

'Um, okay, but if you're not working… I'm gonna have to check the rotas that day, I think Lamont may be off.' He could speak to Lamont later and get him to back this up.

'Oh, it's okay, I already checked with him. He's definitely around that night as Sandra is working at the Y.'

Double shit. How was he going to get out of this?

'Oh Der, thank you so much, this means so much to me. It's my first birthday since I got here and I'm feeling kind of weird about not having any family around,' she smiled.

Oh Christ, of course yes, it was her birthday. How could he have forgotten? There was no backing out of this now. He tried to smile, while his stomach sank at the thought of a night with her and her friends from the grad school. At least if they were here at the bar he could put himself into professional mode and keep out of their way. A few of her friends sometimes dropped by when she was working and he was intensely uncomfortable in their company.

Niamh had clearly found it hard to settle into a social group when she arrived, not fitting neatly into any of the existing cliques. She had slowly surrounded herself with an eclectic group of people, most of whom were from overseas and whose only unifying characteristics seemed to be extreme intelligence mixed with a strong streak of pretentiousness. They smoked hand-rolled cigarettes and dropped names of European philosophers into the most mundane of conversations, swapping stories of travels to remote tribal regions in South East Asia as easily as reminiscing about how plebeian the crowds had been at the Venice Biennale the year before. He wondered how Niamh, who wore her own intelligence so lightly and with so little arrogance, could enjoy their brittle, overwrought conversations and feigned ennui for life. If he was completely honest with himself, he probably could have borne them with more patience if he hadn't felt so judged by them. The few he had tried to speak to clearly dismissed him as a knuckle-headed barkeeper, and never spoke to him as an intellectual equal in the way Niamh always did.

He had sensed from that first day she walked into the bar that her confidence was just an act. She held herself well, speaking her mind with a slightly clumsy self-possession that he found intriguing and endearing. But behind her bravado there was a wariness in her eyes that spoke of pain in her past, something he knew too much of to miss in someone else. She was so quick to try and own the contradictions in her identity that he instinctively knew that somewhere in her past they had been used against her and that she was determined not to allow it to happen again. He felt a desire to protect her, even though he knew she would find the idea abhorrent and patronising. And then with a hot rush of shame he would remind himself that it was probably people exactly like him who had caused this pain to a mixed-race Irish Catholic girl from Ulster, a community divided on sectarian lines and scarred by violence.

Nope, there was no way of getting out of hosting this party. She looked so happy and excited as she gabbled on about the arrangements that he felt almost reconciled to the idea. How bad could it actually be? And anyway, who was he to deny her something that would clearly give her so much pleasure?


	3. Chapter 3: Our Doubts are Traitors

The rest of her shift passed in a happy blur to Niamh, and she kept throwing Derry excited, grateful smiles that were returned somewhat less enthusiastically. Even though it was a slow night, she fizzed so much with excitement that every guy in the bar seemed to think she was smiling just for him, and her tips were even better than usual.

Just before closing, Lamont and Sandra came in on their way home. Niamh smiled a genuine smile, pleased to see them, even though there was still a certain coolness between her and Sandra. When Lamont first brought her around, Sandra had been wary of the strange, light-skinned girl with the foreign accent who spent so much time hanging around the bar and her new man. It didn't take long to figure out where Niamh's interest lay, though, and Sandra now seemed more to pity her, even if she didn't particularly warm to her.

'Hey, girl! Don't you got somewhere better to be?' Lamont asked, as he sat down on a stool at the bar.

Niamh and Sandra exchanged polite air kisses as Sandra slid into a stool next to Lamont.

'Can I get you something?' Niamh asked.

'Nah, we good, just checking in on y'all before we go home,' he replied sliding his hand up Sandra's leg and giving her thigh a squeeze.

Niamh turned away, surprised at how that small gesture of intimacy hurt her. Of course she wasn't jealous of Sandra, but she suddenly realised how much she longed to have Derry do the same to her. Her good mood started to evaporate. How stupid she was, getting excited just because she had cajoled Derry into letting her have a party in the bar. It didn't mean anything, and he still never once looked at her the way Lamont looked at Sandra now, leaning across to whisper something in her ear that made her giggle and push him lightly on his chest.

Tears pricked at her eyes as she felt the ridiculousness of her situation. Why couldn't she just forget about him? There were guys who hit on her every day in the bar, not to mention Marc, the intense French junior professor in her faculty who wouldn't take no for an answer since that one time when a few drinks and a surfeit of loneliness led to her going home with him. She'd regretted it ever since, but he clearly didn't, constantly bombarding her with gifts and asking her out, seemingly unperturbed by her endless flow of excuses and polite brush offs.

'Hey, bro,' Derry called to Lamont, snapping her out of her reverie. 'Can you give me a hand moving some barrels downstairs?'

'Yes Massa, sho' thang Massa!' said Lamont in an exaggerated southern accent, rolling his eyes and pretending to pull subserviently at an imaginary forelock. Niamh smiled, and the two men walked out of the room with Sandra and Niamh's eyes following them.

'So,' said Niamh, breaking the slightly uncomfortable silence, 'you guys have a nice evening?'

'Uhuh,' replied Sandra, coolly. 'Lamont told me it's your birthday next week. Something about having a party here if Derry agrees?'

'Uh, yeah, he said we could,' sighed Niamh, trying to recover some of her previous excitement about the idea. 'Hopefully it will be a good night.' Then she remembered that Sandra wouldn't be able to come as she'd deliberately picked a night she was working.

'Oh, I'm sorry it's on a day you're not around… it's um, just, you know, I couldn't take a night off at the same time as Lamont.' She wondered if Sandra would take it personally, thinking Niamh was trying to exclude her.

'Maybe you could come by after you finish work?' she suggested, lamely.

'Yeah, maybe.'

Sandra didn't sound exactly enthused, but she looked up at Niamh, whose eyes had wandered back over to the door Derry had gone out of minutes before, and narrowed her eyes thoughtfully.

'So, was Derry okay with the idea?' she asked, curiously.

'Um, yeah, he was cool with it.' Niamh's hesitation was evident and she folded her arms across her chest, hands rubbing against her upper arms distractedly. Derry and Lamont seemed to be taking a long time changing the barrels. She knew Lamont was the only person Derry really talked to, and it worried her that he seemed to want to talk to him now. Was he really okay with the party?

Niamh still didn't understand Derry and Lamont's relationship and although she had gotten over her initial jealousy of their closeness, it still made her slightly uneasy. Even around Lamont, Derry wasn't talkative, although Lamont did enough talking for the both of them, but when she was with them she was always aware of the weight of something heavy and unspoken between them. It seemed such an unlikely friendship, they were so different in every conceivable way, but there was no doubting the deep bond between them. It wasn't in what was said, but in the occasional deep silences and the unreadable looks they gave one another when she asked about their past and how they met.

All she knew was that they both came originally from California, and that Lamont had followed Derry out to New Hampshire a few years after Derry made the move. He helped Derry run the bar, and was the only friend Niamh had ever heard Derry mention. When the bar was shut, they played ball together and worked out in the Y, which is where Lamont had met Sandra a few months back.

It had been a relief to Niamh when Sandra turned up, as she had begun to wonder whether it was something more than friendship that bound Derry and Lamont together. Sure, Lamont always had an appraising glance and a quick compliment for any woman who came within his radius, and he had even hit on her pretty hard when she first started working at the bar. He couldn't get over the idea of a black Irish girl and her accent had him in pieces.

'Sheeeeee-it, if I knew they had girls in Ireland who looked like Denise Huxtable and spoke like Lady Di, I'da gone Catholic and moved there myself!' he would say, grinning at her and looking her up and down.

But Lamont's initial interest quickly dissipated and however hard she tried, Derry remained completely impervious to her, at least physically, even as they grew increasingly close in other ways. They discovered shared interests in history and literature, which took her by surprise, and she felt slightly ashamed when she realised how much she had judged him on his outward appearances. She noted ruefully that as much as she was quick to complain about the preconceptions that surrounded her own appearance, she had been as ready to write Derry off as meat head who couldn't possibly understand about the things she was interested in.

How wrong that was became evident by the end of her first shift in the bar. She'd managed to struggle through not too badly given her lies about previous experience. Derry clearly wasn't fooled by her excuses that things were different in pubs in England, but seemed almost amused by her attempts to keep up the pretence. He patiently took her through the basics, and luckily she picked things up quickly enough that by the end of the evening she was feeling that maybe he wouldn't completely regret taking her on. They were tidying up after closing time, when he asked her what she was studying.

'Oh, well, I'm studying for a PhD,' she said, and could tell from his raised eyebrows and quick nod that he was interested.

'What in?' he asked.

'Oh, it's kind of hard to explain,' she replied. Her studies were pretty niche and were what had brought her to New Hampshire. The Jewish studies department at the university had recently inherited the archive of a long-dead Austrian writer who was the subject of her thesis.

'Try me,' he challenged, straightening up from sweeping the floor and leaning one hand on the bar. Niamh was surprised and pleased to have gotten his attention, and felt herself warming slightly under his intense gaze.

'Okay, well I'm studying 19th Century German-Jewish literature and philosophy, but my thesis is on the way sexual and racial politics were conflated in that time, and how they fed into the politics that would eventually lead to the holocaust.'

Derry's eyes narrowed and his stare intensified.

'Hmm,' he said. 'That's an intense subject, for sure. What made you pick that era and that field?'

She was surprised at the question; most people just glazed over at that point and changed the conversation.

'I was fascinated by the whole dynamic that was going on in central Europe at that time,' she said. 'All those nationalities, languages, races mixing up in a way that had never happened before, that sense of the end of an Empire and the way the decay gave rise to so much creativity and passion. But also how poignant it is when you can already see the seeds of the hatred and violence that was about tear the entire continent apart for the next 50 years.'

'The _Rassenbabylon,'_ he said.

'Yes, exactly,' she said, unable to hide her surprise at him knowing the term Hitler had used to describe what he saw as a disgusting intermingling of the races. 'They say his year in Vienna shaped his hatred of multiculturalism when he saw 'good' Germanic girls being 'corrupted' by venal Jews,' she continued. 'I spent a year in Vienna as part of my first degree, and wandered round all those coffee shops where Freud and Herzl sat. We would take overnight trains to Prague and read Kafka and visit the Jewish Museum there. It scared me. It's like we put it all in a museum and forgot about it – we just say 'Never Again' and that's enough. But it's never gone away - at the University in Vienna they still have these groups of far-right students called _Burschenschaften_ wandering around in full uniform. They were the ones who welcomed Hitler in and kicked out all the Jewish students. They were basically the prototype for the Hitler Youth and yet they're still feted in that country, still part of the elite. They go to all the balls, and get the best seats at the Opera, and everyone acts like it's all okay because no one is putting Jews in concentration camps anymore. The targets may change from one generation to the next, but the fear and hatred are always there, and we need to keep studying them so we can recognise them when they start reappearing.'

She realised she was starting to rant a little, but her passion for her area of studies was not just academic. Her own life had been blighted by religious intolerance and ignorant racism, and her fear of where they could lead was more than theoretical. She noticed Derry had gone quiet with a sombre look in his eyes.

'Sorry, I'm on my soapbox again. You shouldn't ask me these questions if you want to get home on time!' she said, trying to lighten the mood.

He didn't smile, but nodded seriously and picked up the broom again and began sweeping. Taking her cue from him she quickly finished up cleaning down the bar and set off for home.

She went over the conversation in her head again on the way home, trying to see if she'd said something that would have antagonised Derry. She recalled how she had assumed he wouldn't know, or care, about her research and how he'd proven her wrong. She felt her condescension must have been obvious to him, and mentally kicked herself for it. He intrigued her and she couldn't deny finding him attractive, even if he definitely wasn't her usual type, and she realised she wanted to know more about him and find out what went on in his mind.

From then on, their conversations as they worked alongside each other after hours became something she found herself looking forward to more and more. His knowledge of history and philosophy was impressive, and he argued with her robustly, particularly when it came to her view of American history. She felt sure he must have studied seriously, but when she asked him, he claimed never to have gone to college. She found that hard to believe. The way his mind worked, there was no way he could have failed at school and she began to wonder if he had been on an academic route and something had knocked him off the path. It wasn't exactly uncommon for people to break under the pressure of a PhD and drop out and it would explain the air of quiet sadness that never quite left him, and his quiet but undeniable antipathy to the students who thronged into his bar.

As the months went by, Niamh found that Derry was in her thoughts most of her waking moments. Whatever she read or watched, she immediately wondered what he would have thought of it. She had even started using him as a sounding board for the mess of ideas she was trying to turn into her PhD thesis and it amazed her how deeply he understood and engaged with ideas she had spent years studying.

The mental connection she felt to him became a powerful force when combined with his undeniable physical magnetism. The initial vague attraction she had felt for him on first walking into the bar grew with every conversation and burned its way into something much deeper in her soul. But Derry seemed to be made of stone. Her jealousy made her wonder if there was someone else in his life, but all he seemed to do was work. He never showed any interest the women who came into the bar, plenty of whom had bright smiles for the brooding, muscular bar tender who served them. So there was only Lamont, and she began to torture herself with the thoughts that the unspoken bond between them was evidence of a physical relationship that went beyond friendship.

In some ways it was a comfort – if Derry was gay, then it wasn't her fault he wasn't attracted to her. But if he was, then all her dreams and desires were so irrevocably hopeless that she still would have preferred to see him walk through the door with some dumb blond cheerleader on his arm. At least that way she would have _some_ hope.

Then Lamont walked in one day with Sandra. Niamh looked to Derry to see his reaction, but it was clear he was pleased for his friend and he made an instant effort to make Sandra welcome. So he wasn't gay, it was her fault all along, Niamh thought. All the insecurities about her appearance that had plagued her as a child came flooding back. She spent ages staring into the mirror, criticising her every flaw – the too small eyes, her unmanageable hair which she let grow into a natural, kinky frizz after years of burning it with straightening solutions, her freckles which you could still see in spite of her blackness.

She compared her figure to the willowy white girls who wandered round campus flicking their shiny hair from side to side, wearing the shortest of shorts over long, slim legs and cropped tops showing their slender waists and neat breasts. Her mixture of Jamaican and Irish descent had given her a thickness that she was horribly conscious of next to these model-skinny girls; a backside that was too round, breasts that jutted out and stretched at her clothes so they didn't swish and drape themselves elegantly round her the way theirs did. Growing up she'd been the skinny, fast kid who ran for the school team, and even though puberty filled her out with unexpected curves, she still had a lithe, athletic body which she knew from experience could turn heads. But Derry's imperviousness made her doubt herself, and believe that if she could only be like those waiflike white girls he would look at her. Or maybe more like Sandra, more like the _real_ black woman she had often in her life felt that she didn't know how to be. Sandra's deep skin tone and glossy weaves gave her an air of composure and confident identity that Niamh coveted. Of course Niamh knew deep down how unfair this was; she had profited enough times in her life by looking as if she could 'pass' to know that life was stacked harshly against darker skinned women, but Derry's indifference made her irrational.

And now this perfect storm of insecurity and doubt came flooding over her as she waited for Derry and Lamont to reappear. She tried to push the slow, creeping feeling of dread from her mind and tell herself that the party _was_ a good idea.

It's just a party, she thought. And how bad could it really be?


	4. Chapter 4: Ne Me Quitte Pas

The night before Niamh's party, Derry didn't sleep well.

Niamh had spent the week before trying to get him interested in all the details of invites, cocktail lists and music. He tried to show willing but every time she talked about it he felt that same sick feeling in his stomach and just wanted it to all be over. He could tell it meant a lot to her, though, even though he didn't really understand why, so he tried to smile and not let his doubts affect her.

What Lamont had said to him that night Niamh first mentioned the party was playing on his mind, too. When he and Sandra had come into the bar that evening, he had called Lamont down into the cellar to try and help him find a way out of it.

'What you freaking out about?' Lamont had asked. 'The girl just wanna get her party on for her birthday.'

'Shit, I know, she's young, she wants to party,' he sighed. 'But why here? Why does she have to bring all those people to my bar?'

Lamont had looked sideways at him, with narrowed eyes.

'Well, maybe she wants you to party with her?' he said, lightly.

Derry scowled at Lamont. He thought they had gotten beyond stupid comments like that.

When Niamh had first started in the bar, Lamont used to flirt with her, like he did with most pretty girls that he came into contact with.

'Damn, she is _fine_ ,' he had said to Derry after their first shift. 'Now that is an English muffin I wouldn't mind waking up to.'

Derry had felt a stab of anger and jealousy at the image.

'She's not English, she's Irish. And don't talk like that about her,' he had snapped before he could help himself.

After that, Lamont was careful not to hit on Niamh, and watched Derry's reactions to her closely.

'You know, D,' he said once, when Derry was watching yet another customer offer to buy Niamh a drink, 'if I had those Irish eyes smiling at me every day, I'd try and smile back sometimes.'

'What the fuck do you mean?' Derry had rounded on him again, sounding angrier than he had meant to.

'Yo, don't take it the wrong way, a'ight,' Lamont hit back, defensively. 'I'm just saying, she seem to be going out of her way to get your attention, and you seem to be going out of your way to not pay her any.'

'Don't be stupid. She doesn't want anything from me,' Derry replied quickly.

Then he seemed to deflate slightly and added quietly:

'And, even if she did, what the fuck do I have to give her?'

He had shaken his head as if to clear it of the thought, turning around to rearrange the bottles on the shelf behind the bar. If he hadn't, he would have seen Niamh turn to look at him, wanting to see if he'd noticed the guy hitting on her, but instead all she saw was the back of his head, again.

It bothered Derry when Lamont said things like that, and Lamont soon stopped when he saw how Derry reacted. So why would his friend stir that shit back up again now, now he had this stupid party to deal with?

When he woke up on the morning of the party it took a long time to get his head ready to face the day. His usual morning workout left him feeling dissatisfied, so he jumped up to catch the pull-up bar welded to his living room ceiling and began to heave himself up and down, grunting with the effort. Even that couldn't burn away the irritability welling up inside him, so he threw on jogging pants and his ever-present long-sleeved t-shirt and went out for a run. He ran hard, until his legs and his lungs were screaming at him to stop, but he pushed on, feeling a masochistic pleasure in the pain he was causing himself. Finally, he could go no further and he came to a halt, leaning forward, hands on his knees, breath ragged and head spinning.

It's just a couple of hours, he told himself. This time tomorrow and it will all be over.

The daytime shift seemed to drag as if time itself was mocking him. There weren't enough customers for him to busy himself with, but nor was the bar empty so he could go sit out back and brood on his thoughts. Finally, at 6pm he cleared the final few customers out and hung the sign on the door that Niamh had spent far more time than was necessary designing and carefully laminating.

'Bar closed for private event this evening. Thank you for your understanding.'

She had said they would be arriving at 8 but he wanted to give himself time to prepare. He went upstairs, put a CD into the player and lay down on his threadbare sofa with one arm thrown over his eyes. Nina Simone's voice washed over him as he lay there, trying to achieve the state of numbness that would carry him through the evening ahead.

When Danny had died, he had nearly gone mad with anguish and guilt. Seeing his mother and sister breaking with grief, he had desperately wanted to give in to the seductive rage that told him to avenge Danny's death. It would have been so easy to go back to that life; there was something so solid and reassuring about hatred. It made you hard and invincible and gave a meaning to your pain. But he knew it was a siren's call that would drive him back onto the rocks he had been broken on before.

Yet again it had been Dr Sweeney who was there to catch him when he was about to fall. He listened to Derek rail and rage, allowing him his anger and his pain, but not letting him forget his responsibility to atone for his own sins. Eventually Derek had thrown himself into taking down his old neo-Nazi gang with a fervour that verged on the kamikaze. The tentacles of the gangs spread far into other, more organised, groups and eventually Derek was responsible for information that led to the infiltration of a number of neo-Nazi networks across California and beyond.

There was a part of him that had hoped one of the gangs would come for him so he could have gone down in the violent and bloody end he knew he deserved. They didn't, though, and in the end, he took the place in the witness protection programme offered to him by the police. It meant his mother yet again losing her oldest son, but he reasoned to himself that she and his sisters were better off without his malign influence in their lives. He had packed a small bag and headed off to the colder climes of New Hampshire without a backwards glance and Derek became Derry.

The ghosts of the dead followed him, though. The faces of two Black men he had brutally murdered the night they tried to break into his home had long haunted his dreams, but now they were joined by Danny. Sweet, funny, stupid Danny. His baby brother, the one he should have protected, lying in his arms, face spattered with blood. Derry knew he had killed Danny as surely as if he had pulled the trigger himself and he raged against the Universe for taking Danny instead of him.

The only thing that kept him alive was the thought that he didn't deserve the mercy of the coward's way out. He deserved to live, to suffer and be punished for what he had done. Eventually, the pain was too much to bear, though, and he could only survive by refusing to feel anything. If he couldn't bear to feel the pain, he couldn't deserve to feel anything, he reasoned. He had become an expert in shutting himself down, robotically getting through each day as if it was a duty and nothing more.

The only person he had kept in touch with was Lamont, and when Lamont finally made parole, Derek paid for a ticket for Lamont to join him in his new life. He could see how Lamont was shocked by the changes in him, and half expected him to take off for somewhere less depressing. Lamont stuck around, though, and Derek was grateful he had. They didn't talk much of the past, but having Lamont there gave him comfort. He wanted to escape who he was, who he had been, but Lamont knew the worst of him that there was to know and still stood quietly by him.

It was a pleasure too, seeing his friend live the good life he deserved. Lamont threw himself into the pleasures of the outside world that Derek denied himself, and Derek got a small vicarious pleasure from knowing he had helped enable this. He had been truly pleased for his friend when he met Sandra. There had been other girls before her, but he could tell from the start that she meant something more to Lamont and Derek rejoiced for his friend even as he felt a pang of loneliness at losing part of him to her.

The only thing upsetting his careful equilibrium now was Niamh. She tested the walls he had built around his feelings like nothing before, and it was a daily battle to convince his heart that he felt nothing more than disinterested friendship for her. He knew the wisest thing would be to cut her out of his life altogether, but he couldn't. Like a parched man in the desert who knows the cooling lake he can see on the horizon is a mirage but who can't stop limping towards it.

As he lay there trying to control his thoughts, the heart-rending words of the Nina Simone song on the stereo intruded on his consciousness.

'Ne me quitte pas,' beseeched Nina Simone. Don't leave me.

Derry sat up. Suddenly he knew why the party was filling him with such dread. It was the dread of knowing he was going to lose her. Of course he had always known that. She was destined for a different world to his, but somehow when it was just the two of them, working together, laughing, talking, arguing, he could block out the world for a few hours and convince himself that he mattered to her. When she asked his advice and listened to his answers so attentively it made him feel for he counted for something. Seeing her with her friends, though, made him painfully aware of how stupid he was to think that. He didn't belong in their world and she would move on with them, leaving him behind – just a memory, if even that, of some guy she worked with in a bar to pay her way through grad school.

'Il faut oublier. Tout peut s'oublier,' continued Nina. You must forget. Everything can be forgotten.

But Derry knew too well there are some things that cannot be forgotten.


	5. Chapter 5: It's My Party

_**Thank you so much to the people who have taken time to review. You've given me the energy to keep going - hope you enjoy even this half as much as I have enjoyed writing it ;-)_

 _Seriously, it means a lot - it's the first time I've done this and it's great to know this story that I love so much has reached someone else. **_

Chapter 5: It's My Party

Niamh stood in front of the mirror in her room nervously checking her appearance for the millionth time. She had finally given into the nagging of her Moroccan friend, Oumaima, to let her tame Niamh's hair. Growing up with her white mother, Niamh had never learned the intricacies of how to care for black hair and didn't have the patience to sit through the bewildering array of treatments in the beauty shop. This time she submitted, though, and allowed Oumaima to smooth, oil, twist and pull at her hair for what felt like hours, clicking her tongue disappointedly at Niamh's split ends and poorly tamed curls.

Niamh had to admit that it was worth the fuss, though. Oumaima had skilfully woven the front of her hair into a tight braid running from one side of her head to the other, lacing a gold ribbon through it that matched Niamh's dress. Oumaima had wanted to tie up the rest of her hair into a bun behind the braid, but Niamh liked the way her natural curls spilled out behind it and refused.

The gold mini-dress she was wearing was far more daring than her usual style, cut low at the front and clinging to her curves. It was covered in rows of round golden sequins, like the coins on a belly-dancer's costume, which shimmered as she moved. She wore matching gold high heels which made her even taller than usual and exaggerated the tilt of her hips and the angle of her full breasts.

The tall, groomed, confident girl in the mirror almost seemed like a stranger and Niamh fought down the voice in her head that told her she looked like a kid dressing up in her mother's clothes. She shook her hair out, putting one hand on her hip and stared coolly into the mirror as if daring her reflection to betray her. Okay, she thought. Let's do this.

She had arranged to meet with some of her friends on the way to the bar and she was running late, as usual. She pulled on a denim jacket over her dress and clattered down the stairs from the dorm, slightly unsteady in the unfamiliar heels. In the parking lot out front she saw Hugo in his car waiting for her, Stefania and Javier in the back.

'Hey, Posh Boy, sorry I'm late,' she said as she opened the door.

'No problem, dahling,' replied Hugo in his exaggerated upper-class accent, whistling slowly as he looked her up and down. 'Gosh. I guess Belle is ready for her ball!'

Niamh flicked her hair and pouted, trying not to blush. She hated herself for still letting Hugo's aura of privilege intimidate her. They had met here at grad school, where she found out that they had actually been at Cambridge at the same time, although clearly their paths had never crossed. The son of a Scottish landowner, who rubbed shoulders with royalty at his elite private school, Hugo's life at Cambridge had revolved around formal college dinners and presidency of the Mountaineering club. Niamh, on the other hand, had arrived from her South London housing estate upbringing and immediately hated all the snobbery and pretentiousness of that life. She felt she had more in common with the teenagers bussed in by the colleges from the estates surrounding the city to wait on the students at their formal dinners than she did with her fellow students. She had turned her back on all that, and while she had excelled academically, she never joined in with the balls, the punting trips on the Cam and the other activities that felt so alien to her, escaping back to London at every possibility.

She had given Hugo the nickname Posh Boy within weeks of meeting him, and he good-naturedly accepted the moniker, playing up to the stereotype.

'Cagna, you look hot!' said Stefania, with her usual bluntness. Stefania was a wild, intense young woman from Milan who smoked incessantly and viewed the rest of the world as having been put there for her to do battle with.

'It'll be all eyes on you tonight,' she added catching Niamh's eye in the rear-view mirror. Stefania was the only friend Niamh had told about her feelings for Derry. She hadn't wanted to, but Stef had come to the bar one day to see her and was immediately taken by Derry.

'Ciao bello!' she had said to him, eying Derry lasciviously. Then more loudly than Niamh would have liked, turned to her and said: 'Why didn't you tell me your boss was so fucking hot, I would have come to visit your little bar sooner.'

Niamh hadn't replied, but nothing got past Stef's eagle eyes and she immediately noticed her friend blush and scowl a little.

'Ohhhh, I get it, you are trying to keep him to yourself! That's fair, I do already have Javier, and he is the jealous type,' she admitted.

'It doesn't matter,' Niamh replied. 'He's not interested in me anyway.'

She realised too late that she hadn't denied her own feelings for Derry, but Stef would have guessed anyway. And underneath the hard exterior, Stef was actually surprisingly intuitive and ready, in her own foulmouthed way, to be a shoulder to cry on. She didn't push Niamh any further, but would occasionally ask her how things were going at work, and would offer a small kiss to Niamh's cheek or a hug when Niamh just shrugged in reply.

'Che cazzo, mi cara,' she would say. 'He's either crazy or blind.'

They arrived at the bar and pulled up. Hugo opened the trunk of the car and pulled out two large record boxes and Stefania carefully handed the large cake box she had been carrying on her lap to Javier.

Here goes nothing, thought Niamh, pushing open the door into the bar and walking in. Derry and Lamont had pushed the tables to the edges of the room clearing a larger than usual space for dancing and were fixing the wiring to a small lighting rig hanging from the ceiling. They both turned as she and her friends came in, and Derry seemed to freeze when he saw her.

Lamont grinned and walked over to hug her.

'Yo shorty, it's your birthday,' he sang. 'We gonna party like it's your birthday.'

She smiled and introduced her friends, who shook hands and looked around them with critical eyes.

'So, I have my decks in the car,' Hugo said. 'Where shall I put them, my man?'

Lamont looked startled for a moment at Hugo's accent and the air he had of being the Laird of the Manor ordering his servants around, but then clapped him on the back.

'Lemme help you,' he said and they walked out towards the car.

Niamh turned nervously back to Derry, who was still watching her.

'Hey,' she said, with an uncertain smile.

'Hey,' he replied, quietly. 'Happy Birthday.'

Niamh wasn't used to the way Derry was looking at her and she felt unexpectedly awkward. She tugged the hem of her dress down nervously and pulled the denim jacket around her, wishing she'd worn something less showy. The atmosphere between them thickened and neither of them seemed to know what to say next.

Just before she could blurt out something stupid to break the silence, Lamont and Hugo came crashing back through the doors carrying a set of DJ decks and laughing at something the others couldn't hear. Derry turned to go and help them, and the moment was gone.

The bar quickly filled up with people and noise. Niamh was touched to see how many of the friends and acquaintances she had invited had turned up, most bearing gifts, cards and flowers which piled up on the unused tables. The drinks were flowing freely, and Hugo's music had people up and dancing to an eclectic mix of European dance music and American hip-hop.

To her disappointment, though Derry stayed the other side of the bar, seemingly determined to stay in his professional role and not join in the party. Niamh repeatedly tried to catch his eye but he was being kept busy by the constant stream of people at the bar. At least he wouldn't be able to complain that takings were down, she thought, her friends seemed to be trying to drink the bar dry.

Stefania had insisted on treating Niamh to a bottle of Italian Prosecco.

'Fuck that French champagne bullshit,' she had said, pouring Niamh another glass of the fizzing white wine.

Niamh smiled. It wasn't as if they stocked French champagne in Derry's bar, but she wouldn't have been able to tell the difference anyway. She usually avoided drinking around Derry, knowing he was teetotal, but tonight she didn't care. She had worked so hard to get this evening right and if he was going to carry on ignoring her, she might as well get drunk and have some fun.

The bubbles went straight to Niamh's head, and as the evening wore on she tried to mask her disappointment at Derry's inattention by laughing loudly and flitting between groups of friends, smiling and hugging everyone. As she grew drunker, her inhibitions began to melt and soon she and Stef were up on the dance floor together, hands interlaced, twisting and gliding around each other. Niamh felt the tension of the past weeks and months leaving her as she lost herself in the music and in the sinuous physical contact with her friend. Hugo was picking the tempo up, playing Spanish and North African songs with skittering rhythms and the two of them danced faster and faster. The coins on Niamh's dress whirled and flickered as she flicked her hips, holding Stef's hand high above her head as she circled around her.

'See, I told you it would be all eyes on you,' Stef leaned forward and mouthed into Niamh's ear over the noise.

The wine and the music had gone to her head and made her forget about what was around her, but looking up Niamh saw a small circle had formed around them, cheering them on. She noticed Derry pushing his way past the edge of the circle, heading to pick up a row of empty glasses left on the table behind them.

At that moment, the music changed abruptly as Hugo wheeled the record back and the heavy, pulsing beat of 'American Boy' dropped. Whooping, the circle around them broke as the crowd began to dance to the new song, and Derry suddenly found himself jostled into the midst of the dancing throng. Niamh was just feet away from him and without thinking, she reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him towards her. Stef immediately saw her move and closed in behind him, smoothly blocking his way out and dancing up against him, pushing him further forwards towards Niamh.

Niamh was drunk enough not to care about the shocked look on his face. The moment was too perfect to let pass and she looped her fingers between his, swaying towards him until her thighs were brushing against his as she dipped provocatively against him, locking eyes with him.

'Take me on a trip, I want to go somewhere,' sang Estelle on the track. 'Take me to New York, I'd love to see LA.'

To her surprise and delight Derry didn't resist and she felt his hand rest lightly on her hip, following the movements of her body. Emboldened, she reached one hand up to his shoulder, their bodies getting closer with each beat. She felt dizzy with exhilaration to finally be close enough to touch him. How many times had she fantasised about what this might feel like? The feel of his strong, muscular frame brushing tantalisingly against the whole length of her body turned her on and her dancing became more provocative.

With her heels on she was nearly as tall as Derry and she leant forward with her lips brushing against his ear as, carried away by the moment, she sang along to the words of the song sung by a Black English girl to her American lover:

'Could you be my love, love? Would you be my American boy?'

As if in response, his hand gripped her hip tighter and suddenly she found herself pressed hard against his solid chest. Her hand crept around the back of his neck until they were almost cheek to cheek, hips swaying in time with each other. This felt better than she could ever have dreamt. It felt so natural and right to be there, his arm around her and his breath on her cheek.

This is it, thought Niamh, feeling as if she was floating on a cloud of joy. Finally, everything I have longed for is here. Her joy was short lived, however. Suddenly, she sensed a commotion next to her and looked round to see Stefania trying to deflect the unwelcome figure of Marc bearing down on her and Derry.

Shit, thought Niamh. What is he doing here? I didn't invite him. She had gone out of her way to avoid him since that drunken mistake of a one night stand weeks earlier, but here he was, crashing her perfect moment with Derry.

Marc grabbed her arm and swung her abruptly out of Derry's embrace, a blast of alcohol fumes hitting her in the face as he did. He was clearly intoxicated, eyes shining and hair dishevelled.

'Ma chérie!' he cried, pulling her towards him. She swerved quickly enough that his clumsy kiss landed on her cheek and she recoiled in disgust.

''Appy Birthday! We must celebrate, non?' he continued in the thick French accent Niamh found so pretentious.

'Garçon!' he cried, clicking his fingers at Derry and waving a $100 bill. 'Go get me and my girl some Champagne, or whatever the closest is you 'ave in this place.'

Overcome with surprise, shame and confusion, Niamh could hardly make herself look at Derry. He stood still for a moment, his face an unreadable mask, then plucked the money from Marc's hand and turned and marched back towards the bar.

Niamh wanted to cry out to him and beg him to come back. She wanted to explain away this horrible apparition but the words were stuck in her throat. The stench of alcohol and the wild look in Marc's eyes made her fear what he might do next as, still gripping her possessively against him, he dragged her towards the bar. Derry had disappeared back behind the counter and, without looking at Niamh, he slammed another bottle of prosecco and two glasses down on it.

'No champagne,' he snapped as he threw a wad of bills down next to them. 'Here's your change.'

Marc waved his hand dismissively.

'Oh, keep the change, barkeeper,' he said, letting go of Niamh's arm as he went to open the bottle.

Derry was still resolutely refusing to meet her eye as if even the sight of her was repulsive to him now. Gulping down a sob at how quickly the warmth between them had evaporated and still trembling from the memory of his arms around her, she could bear it no longer. She took her chance while Marc was distracted and turned and ran to the bathroom, collapsing through the door just as the tears welled up and began to pour down her face.


	6. Chapter 6: A Tangled Web

****AN: Warning for some more mature content and language in this chapter. Please,** **please** **let me know what you think! I'm getting to a kind of dark place with the story now, but please hang in there with me. It will be okay in the end. I think… ****

Chapter 6: A Tangled Web

Derry watched Niamh run off towards the bathroom with an aching heart. He was overcome with anger at himself for having lost control of his actions and allowing himself to be shown up by that asshole, Marc. What the fuck was he thinking, dancing like that with her, hands pawing away at her in front of the whole room?

He had known he was in trouble from the minute she walked into the bar that evening, a vision of shimmering beauty, her dress barely covering her sexy curves and her face shining with excitement. He had never seen her look more stunning and he could barely talk to her or look at her without feeling a hot stab of desire. He hid himself behind the bar, willing himself to ignore her, but painfully aware of her flitting around the room, hugging and kissing the stream of friends who piled into the bar. She seemed to him like a shimmering glow of gold floating around the room spilling fairy dust behind her and leaving everyone staring in her wake.

It was when she had gotten up to dance with that crazy Italian friend of hers that he really lost it. That girl – Stef, wasn't it? – had been in to the bar a couple of times before when Niamh was working and Derry couldn't help but notice her suggestive stare and filthy mouth. She had been buying Niamh drinks since they arrived, and seemed determined to get her drunk. He had looked up with dismay to see them up on the dance floor, provocatively winding around each other, eyes locked, sliding in and out of each other's arms. They were both natural dancers, their bodies fitting effortlessly to the rhythms, luxuriating in the physical pleasure of movement and watching them together was unbelievably sexy. Derry wasn't the only one captivated by the spectacle and soon a crowd formed around the two girls.

He noticed Lamont staring appreciatively at them and gave his friend an annoyed scowl.

'Fuck, man!' Lamont said, smiling as he spread his hands out in a gesture of surrender. 'What do you want? I'm only human!'

'You don't think Sandra would have something to say about you standing there with your tongue on the floor?' snapped Derry.

'Oh yeah sure,' replied Lamont, shaking his head, as he turned back to serve another customer waiting at the bar. 'It's _Sandra_ who's going to be jealous.'

Derry felt a flash of anger at Lamont, and walked out from behind the bar before he could say something he would regret. He was coiled tight like a spring and needed to move to release his tension, so began to walk to the other side of the bar to collect up empty glasses. He tried to keep his eyes averted from Niamh but found himself instinctively walking closer towards the circle crowded around her and Stef.

Stef was looking around her, clearly revelling in the effect they were having on the room. Niamh, on the other hand, seemed oblivious to anything but the music, eyes half closed as her hips moved in shimmying, sensual circles to the beat. Stef saw him coming and leant forward to whisper something in Niamh's ear, which made her suddenly look up. Afraid she would see him staring, Derry tried to swerve away from them and towards the back of the bar, but before he could go more than a couple of paces, the music suddenly changed. He'd never heard the new song before, but the crowd clearly had and, as one, they broke into a cheer and began dancing. Derry's way was blocked and turning to go back the way he had come, found himself face to face with Niamh.

Her face and eyes were shining, lips parted in a sensual smile, the gold thread in her hair catching the lights as they changed and spun. His breath caught in his throat at the sheer beauty of her and he stood rooted to the spot, unable to move as she reached out and took his hand. He felt as if he were watching himself from far away as she slowly drew him towards her, intoxicated by the shimmer of her dress and her skin, the smell of her perfume and the heat of her body.

Before he knew what he was doing, he found his hand reaching out to touch her swaying hip, gently caressing the curve of her body. Her movements infected him and he began to rock in time with her. She moved towards him, closing the space between them and reaching up to rest her hand on his shoulder. She was so tantalisingly close he could feel the soft curves of her body brushing against him and the warmth of her breath on his cheek. Realising resistance was futile, he gave in, allowing himself to revel in the moment, breathing in her scent and closing his eyes.

He felt her lips against his ear, and strained to hear what she was saying. She seemed to be singing along to the song, the words dropping into his consciousness and making his heart thrum with desire:

'Will you be my love, my love? Would you be my American boy?'

Unconsciously he gripped her tighter, stifling a groan in his throat. He wanted her so badly he was unable to think of anything other than holding her to him and never letting go, when suddenly she stiffened and jerked out of his arms.

His eyes snapped open to see Niamh staring guiltily at a dishevelled looking man who was holding her arm. Derry recognised him. He was called Marc, and he had been in the bar repeatedly the last few weeks, sitting at a table in the corner and speaking to Niamh in French. She had seemed agitated when he was there, and Derry had asked her if she was okay. She had smiled and said yes, sure, he was just one of the professors from her department. He guessed it made her uncomfortable to have the two sides of her life cross over like that so had nodded and left them to it.

Now the guy was here again, clearly drunk, and pulling Niamh into a controlling embrace, calling her 'Chérie'. Derry felt the floor beneath him shift and sway as he took in the scene. Niamh was so embarrassed she couldn't meet his eye and the guy, Marc, had clear look of triumph as he waved money in Derry's face, snapping his fingers at him to get back to his place behind the bar.

Stiff with shame and regret, Derry had marched back to the bar, trying to keep the tumult of emotions from his face as he inwardly cursed his own stupidity. He couldn't bear to look at her as he put out the bottle Marc had ordered, and struggled to keep calm when Marc dismissively waved away his change, telling Derry to keep it as a tip.

Marc was around Derry's height, but must have been closer to half his weight, with curly brown hair flopping over one eye. He wore a long dark coat, over a ruffled white shirt with a blue silk cravat knotted loosely around his neck. He looked and sounded like an exaggerated stereotype of a French intellectual, and the idea of Niamh being possessed by such an arrogant, patronising jerk made the bile rise in Derry's throat. He'd always known he would lose, her, but surely not to _this_!

As Marc turned to open the bottle, he finally let go of Niamh's arm and both men turned in surprise as she pulled suddenly away from him, practically running towards the bathroom. Derry caught the look on her face as she ran and he could have sworn she was crying.

Stef, who had witnessed the entire scene, rushed after her friend and disappeared through the bathroom door. Derry and Marc both watched them go in silence, but Marc was the first to recover. He turned to Derry.

'Oh, I _am_ sorry for you,' he smirked. 'I suppose Niamh did not tell you about us?'

He sighed theatrically with a Gallic shrug.

'What can I say,' he went on. 'The girl is a terrible prick-tease; she loves to string men along.'

Derry tensed and tried to resist the temptation to reach across the bar and punch Marc in his stupid, sneering face.

'It takes a certain kind of man to tame a little _négresse_ like that,' Marc smiled. 'But oh là là, I tell you my friend, it is worth it in the end.'

Shaking with fury at the racial slur Marc had used, Derry replied in an icy voice:

'Well _my friend_ , I guess that's the difference between you and me. I don't feel the need to try and prove my manhood by 'taming' her.'

He turned on his heel to see Lamont standing next to him with a concerned look on his face.

'Yo D, you okay?' he asked, putting a hand on Derry's arm. Derry nodded grimly, not trusting himself to speak. He noticed Lamont's eyes following some movement over his shoulder and turned around. The door to the bathroom was opening and Stef was leading an unsteady looking Niamh out by her arm. Even at this distance Derry could see she had been crying and his heart softened towards her, wishing he could take her back in his arms and make everything okay again.

Stef was leading Niamh towards the street door, and Marc, sensing this, darted over to cut them off, prosecco bottle still in one hand. He was talking to Niamh, his other hand gripping her arm again and she seemed to be trying to twist away from him. He wouldn't let go and was pulling her towards him again, an angry look on his face, as Stef moved in between them as if to break up a fight.

Instinctively, Derry vaulted over the bar in one swift motion and reached Niamh's side just as she wrenched her arm free from Marc's grip. Marc was shouting at her drunkenly in French and Derry could understand enough to hear him calling her a whore. Willing himself to be calm, Derry kept his back to Marc and faced Niamh. He went to touch her arm where Marc had been gripping it, but hesitated, holding back.

'Are you okay?' he asked, softly.

She shook her head dumbly, and tears started welling up in her eyes again. Stef was unleashing a stream of Italian profanities at Marc, who was still slurring and waving the bottle of prosecco around.

Derry felt a shove in his back and swung round to see the red-faced Frenchman still shouting, spittle flying from his mouth. Marc went to swing the bottle at Derry's head. He was so drunk and clumsy, it was easy for Derry to step out the way. Niamh had seen the swing coming too, though, and stepped forward as if to warn Derry. As Derry moved out of the way, the bottle struck Niamh with a sickening thud across her face, knocking her to the floor.

Time seemed to stand still and the crowd which had been gathering around the brewing storm gasped and took a step back. A red wave of rage flooded over Derry as he saw Niamh fall and he swung round, face contorted with rage, fists ready to smash Marc into a bloody pulp. Stef was quicker though, and she grabbed Derry by his arms, urgently commanding him to stop, her face inches from his. For a second he thought he would hit her too, and she flinched as if she could read his mind, but stood firm.

'No Derry, no. Do not do it,' she said, trying to twist him around away from Marc. 'Go to _her_. She needs you.'

Oh shit, Niamh, he thought, suddenly ashamed of his reaction. He turned back to see her slumped on the floor, face in her hands, sobbing, and trickle of red blood coming from an ugly gash on her cheek.

He sank to his knees next to her.

'Niamh! Niamh!' he cried. 'Look at me! Are you okay?'

She didn't reply, and didn't take her hands away from her face.

'Honey, please,' he begged. 'Please don't cry. It's okay, I'm sorry.'

He knew he was babbling and wanted above all else to get her out of there, away from all this mess and noise. He gently tried to pick her up, sliding his hands under her arms. She collapsed against him, but allowed herself to be lifted and leant on his shoulder as he supported her out towards the door to the office. Lamont was already there, looking to Derry for instructions.

'You need some help?' he asked.

Derry hesitated.

'No, it's okay. But just get rid of… of all _this_ ', he said, gesticulating towards the room and the people, who were all still staring, shocked.

'Sho' thing,' Lamont nodded.

Derry led Niamh to the office where he lowered her gently down on a small sofa that was positioned against the far wall. Outside they heard the music come to a grinding stop and Lamont's voice shouting at people to finish their drinks, get their coats and get out.

'Show is over, folks,' he was shouting. 'Nothing to see here. Move along.'

Niamh was still sobbing silently and Derry sat down next to her, gently prising her hands away from her face.

'Let me see,' he pleaded. 'I just need to see how bad it is.'

He winced as he looked at the ugly red wheal on her beautiful cheekbone. It wasn't bleeding too badly, but he still felt his blood run hot and cold with anger thinking about what Marc had done.

'I should call the police on that motherfucker,' he said. 'You should press charges.'

For the first time, Niamh stopped crying and opened her eyes wide, grabbing his arm as if to stop him.

'No! No!' she blurted out. 'He didn't mean to hit me.'

Derry looked surprised. Why would she defend the bastard after what he had done? With a sinking feeling he thought she must really love him.

Derry stood up.

'I'll go get you some ice,' he said, biting back tears of his own and walking out of the room.

The last few revellers were leaving the bar, and Lamont was helping Hugo take his decks down. They looked up as Derry walked in.

'Is she okay?' asked Hugo, his face white. 'Should I go and see her?'

'I'll take care of her,' replied Derry, bluntly.

Turning to Lamont, he said: 'Just leave all this and go home. It's been a long night, I'll sort it all out in the morning.'

Lamont nodded.

When Derry went back into the office with a bucket of ice and a first aid kit in his hand, he found Niamh sitting quietly staring at the floor. She didn't look up as he tore the towel in two, wetting one half and wrapping ice in the other.

'Please look at me,' he said quietly.

She turned to face him and allowed him to use the wet towel to gently wipe away the worst of the blood. He opened the medical kit and took out an antiseptic wipe.

'This is going to sting a bit,' he warned, as he carefully cleaned the wound.

Niamh barely blinked, submitting passively to his ministrations, but a solitary tear slid out of her eye and rolled down the side of her nose.

Having finished cleaning the wound, he put a small dressing over the cut and picked up the towel with the ice in. He went as if to hand it to her, but she didn't move, staring silently at him, an unreadable expression in her eyes. He hesitated, and then lifted the towel himself pressing it against her cheek. She winced slightly as the cold of the ice hit her skin and reached up placing her hand over his.

'I'm so sorry,' she whispered. 'I'm so sorry, but it's not what you think.'

Derry flinched.

'You don't have to apologise,' he said stiffly.

'What Marc said to you was a lie,' she continued, almost inaudibly. 'I'm not his girl. I hate him.'

Derry held his breath. This was not what he had expected.

'I mean, it is true, I did… we… we, you know,' she faltered, blushing and looking away.

Derry tried to remain impassive but inwardly his jealousy bristled.

'But it was just once, I swear,' she whispered.

'You don't have to explain anything to me,' he said. 'It's none of my business.'

'Yes it is!' she cried, suddenly angry. 'Why can't you see that? The only reason I went to bed with that _prick_ is because of you! I hated it, I hated _him_ , but I was so lonely and you wouldn't even _look_ at me.'

Derry froze, stunned by her words. His heart was thudding in his chest and his throat felt dry. Why was she saying these things? What did she mean? He tried to pull his hand away from her face but she gripped it tightly, not letting go. She was still staring directly into his eyes, daring him to look away again.

Derry swallowed hard.

'I… I don't understand,' he said, aware how lame that sounded.

Niamh allowed him to lower his hand, letting the ice and the towel drop to the floor, but kept her hand on his.

'It has always been _you_ I wanted _,_ ' she said. 'Since the first day I walked through that door. But I never dared hope you might want me too until tonight.'

Derry lowered his gaze, unable to meet the unflinching honesty in her eyes, afraid his would betray too much of his own feelings.

'Derry,' she insisted. 'Look at me. I can't lie to you anymore. I want you. I want everything about you.'

'No,' he said, looking back up at her. 'You don't know what you're saying. You don't want me. Please believe me, you don't.'

There was such despair in his voice that for a moment she paused, but then shook her head at him.

'Don't tell me what I want,' she said. 'I _know_ what I want. And I believe you want the same thing too. But if you don't, you are going to have to tell me. Tell me to leave.'

Derry shook his head dumbly. He knew he should, but the words couldn't come.

'Tell me you don't want me and I will go and never come back. But you need to know that I _am_ yours, whether you want me or not. And I _want_ you,' she whispered slowly, emphasising the word 'want' in a way that left no doubt as to what she meant

Her words burned into Derry like a flame and as she spoke, Niamh leaned forward and brushed her lips softly against his. The touch of her lips ignited a yearning he could no longer deny and his eyes darkened with desire.

'Tell me,' she repeated, kissing him again. 'Tell me you don't want me.'

At these words, something snapped inside Derry. He reached a hand up behind her neck, pulling her in to him and kissing her back with an intensity which made her gasp. Her lips were soft and he pressed harder and harder against them, wanting to lose himself in this feeling. She was kissing him back fiercely too now, her lips opening and allowing his tongue to slide inside her mouth, tasting the tang of prosecco on her tongue. All semblance of self-control had gone and Derry kissed her wildly, trailing kisses down her neck and shoulders, exulting in the moans this elicited from her.

Without realising what he was doing, he pushed her back so she was lying on the sofa. He continued his trail of kisses down her neck, over her collar bone, his hands sliding the dress off her shoulders and roaming greedily over her body. He ran his hand down under her butt and she lifted her leg, wrapping it around his waist, pulling him closer. He groaned as her dress rode up over her hips and his hands travelled up the bare flesh of her legs to feel the swell of her backside through her underwear. All rational thought had gone, all that mattered was this – the feeling of her skin, her flesh under his hands, her moans in his ears, calling his name. She was responding to his touch with a wildness that drove him on, one hand in his hair pushing his head down into her neck and breasts while the other grasped at his back seeming to want to feel every inch of him.

He lifted his head from her breasts, pulling himself on back top of her, kissing her, wanting to taste that sweetness again. She was kissing him back, pushing her body up against his, inviting him on. He felt her hands run down his stomach and suddenly he froze, realising she had undone his belt and was starting to tug at his t-shirt, trying to loosen it from where it was tucked in to his waistband.

He leaped back, suddenly horrified at what he had done, looking down as she lay there, her dress bunched up around her waist, exposing her bare breasts and a small pair of white panties. She looked suddenly confused, and alarmed by his expression.

'Derry, what is it? What did I do?' she asked, sitting up and tugging her dress back into place, her eyes pleading with him.

He couldn't answer, and stood there panting, trying to control himself, his desire draining away at the thought of what had been about to happen. He felt cold and sick at the idea she could have pulled his t-shirt up and seen what was hidden under there.

'Derry, please, you're scaring me,' she cried.

A wave of self-loathing crashed over him as he looked at her face, seeing the tears forming again in her eyes. Why did he always end up hurting those he loved? Why couldn't he learn that all he brought was pain and destruction? His anger at himself made him turn cold. Drawing himself up straight, squaring his shoulders, he stood in front of her with a hard expression on his face.

'I tried to warn you Niamh,' he said. 'You don't want me. You don't want _me_ , because you don't know me.'

She tried to contradict him but he cut her off.

'No, Niamh, you don't,' he insisted. 'Everything I have told you is a lie. You don't even know my name.'

The look of fear and confusion on her face tore at him and he longed to sink to his knees in front of her and beg her forgiveness, but he knew he didn't deserve it and ploughed relentlessly on. She needed to know the worst, he had to make her leave and never come back.

He took a step back, taking hold of the bottom of his t-shirt. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his t-shirt and his undershirt over his head in one swift motion, dropping them on the floor next to him. He watched the expression on her face go from desire, to confusion, to dawning fear and horror as her brain struggled to register what she was seeing. Her eyes recoiled from the huge swastika plastered over his chest, and he saw her taking in the iron cross on his forearm, the Nazi eagle on his bicep.

'My name is not Derry. It's Derek Vineyard,' he said in the same hard tone. 'I was the leader of the DOC, a skinhead gang in California. I murdered two men because they were Black. I shot one in the chest and killed the other by stamping his face into the curb, breaking his neck.'

His words were hitting into her like bullets and she was rocking backwards and forwards, arms pulled tight around her, shaking her head and crying 'no, no, no' under her breath.

'I was sent to prison, only for 3 years, because in this country Black life is cheap,' he spat. 'And when I came out, I killed my little brother, Danny, for trying to be like me. He was only a kid, still at high school.'

Derek's voice choked slightly as he said this. He couldn't go on. His own pain, magnified by the hurt he saw in Niamh's face was too much. He turned around facing the wall, arms folded across his chest, fighting down the tears that wanted to come. He stayed motionless that way as he heard her footsteps stumbling across the floor and only turned around when the click of the door closing told him she was gone.


	7. Chapter 7: It Takes More Courage

**More warnings for mature language and themes that could be distressing for some people. Please don't read ahead if you're not sure**

** So... I'm tempted to mark this complete now. This is one of the endings to my story. There are others, but want to know what you think? Should I go on? Please let me know...**

Chapter 7: It Takes More Courage

Niamh stumbled through the darkened bar sobbing, her brain unable to come to terms with what she had seen and heard. Her mind was still fuzzy from the drink and she couldn't tell if it was that or the words Derry had spat at her that made her feel so nauseous. Her cheek throbbed where the bottle had hit her and she could feel her skin burning where it had been rubbed raw by the fierceness of Derry's kisses. The memory of how he had aroused such crazy desire in her fought with the sickening image of him standing there, a huge swastika plastered across his chest calmly telling her those awful, horrible things.

She pushed her way out of the door and into the street, the cool night air slapping her face and sobering her up. The cold reality of what just happened began to hit her, and she ran, kicking off her stupid heels and running barefoot, not caring about the sharp stones of the pavement cutting in to her feet. She ran until the sobs tearing through her pulled all the air from her lungs and she stopped. She leaned against a wall, unable to stop herself from retching violently, vomiting uncontrollably at the images swirling in her brain: the vision of Derry, half naked and beautiful in front of her, defiled by those horrible tattoos, and the terrible, violent images his words conjured up.

She stood there trembling and gasping for breath. Please, she thought. Please let this all be a mistake. Why would he say those things? It couldn't be true! She _knew_ Derry, she was sure of it. He couldn't be capable of killing another person, surely? Of killing his own brother? He never even spoke of his family, she never even knew he _had_ a brother.

Thinking about all the things she didn't know about Derry made her suddenly remember Lamont. How could he be Derry's best friend if what Derry had said was true? Why would Lamont treat Derry like a brother if Derry was a murderous neo-Nazi who killed people over the colour of their skin? None of it made sense.

She heard a car coming down the empty street ahead of her and looked up, dazed, into its headlights. Dimly she was aware of the car stopping next to her and the window being wound down. It was Lamont, with Sandra by his side.

'What the fuck, Niamh?' he said as he took in her appearance.

She couldn't speak, shaking her head dumbly. 'Derry… Derry…' was all she could whisper.

A sudden look of fear crossed Lamont's face, and he yanked open the door and jumped towards her. She lurched back, putting her hands up as if to ward him off, still shaking her head. He stopped, reaching his hand out to her and speaking softly.

'Niamh!' he said. 'I need to know what happened. Please. What did D say to you?'

'I… I…can't. It's too horrible,' she sobbed. 'Tell me it's not true, Lamont, it _can't_ be true!'

'Shit!' Lamont swore, turning and slamming his hand against the roof of the car. 'Stupid mother _fucker_!'

He turned back to her, his face suddenly filled with dread.

'Where is he now?' he asked her urgently.

'I…I don't know,' she stuttered. 'I just left. He was in the bar, in the office.'

They looked at each other, an unspoken fear rising between them.

'No. No, not that. He wouldn't,' she said, without conviction.

But Lamont was already running, running back towards the bar, cursing as he ran. Niamh stood frozen for a moment and then turned and ran after him. She heard Sandra getting out of the car, calling after them, but she didn't stop, running after Lamont, panic rising in her throat.

Lamont reached the door of the bar before her and found it locked. Cursing, he fumbled in his pocket for a key, unlocking the door and pushing it open. The bar was dark, with the debris of the party strewn everywhere. Niamh's presents were still piled up on one of the tables and glasses littered every surface. Their eyes searched the room, neither of them daring to admit what they were looking for, but the room was empty.

Lamont ran to the door to the office, pushing it open. The light was still on, the first aid kit open on the floor next to where a small puddle was forming from the ice that had spilled from the towel. His t-shirt lay abandoned in a heap on the floor, but Derry was nowhere to be seen. Lamont tried the door that led up to Derry's apartment, hammering on it with his fists when he found it locked. Only Derry had a key to that door.

'Derek!' he shouted. 'Derek, it's me. Open this fucking door!'

Niamh winced at hearing him use the unfamiliar name, but there was no answer to his cries. She heard Sandra enter the room behind them, looking from Niamh to Lamont questioningly. Her eyes scanned the scene in the room, taking in Derry's discarded shirt on the floor and Niamh's dishevelled and tear-stained appearance, and her eyes widened.

'Oh,' she said, understanding dawning in her voice. 'Oh, shit.'

Niamh's jaw dropped.

'You _knew?_ ' she cried, incredulously, looking angrily from her to Lamont. 'Why did no one tell me?'

'Why?' Lamont rounded on her, shouting. 'Why? Because the stupid motherfucker said he would rather die than let you know who he was. And now you do know. And now he's… he's… _fuck_!'

He looked frantically around the room for something to break the door with. Spotting a fire extinguisher on the wall behind the desk he grabbed it from its holder and started smashing at the lock on the door. He cursed loudly as he swung, calling Derek's name. Niamh flinched at the noise of the door splintering under his blows.

The door finally crashed open and Lamont dropped the extinguisher, running up the dark staircase to a door at the top. There was no lock on that door and he flung it open, light from the apartment spilling over him. Niamh was a few steps behind and looked up to see Lamont stagger back, an expression of horror on his face and a strangled cry on his lips. Niamh felt as if she were moving in slow motion as she pushed past him and into the room. Even though she knew in her heart what she was going to find, she wasn't ready for the horror that met her eyes. Half blinded by the sudden light, she winced as she took in the austere, sparsely furnished room.

A small kitchen, tidy and impersonal, a row of bookshelves made from long bare planks propped up on bricks.

A CD player on a low table, playing a tune she knew she had heard before but couldn't place.

A collection of gym equipment taking up most of the floor space: dumbbells, a weight bench, kettle bells all neatly lined up.

A pull-up bar in the ceiling, with a jump rope looped neatly through it.

And, hanging from the other end of the jump rope, swaying gently above an upturned chair, the lifeless form of Derry's half-naked body.

She heard a voice screaming and realised it was hers. Sandra pushed into the room too, gasping in horror. She pulled a phone out of her bag and called 911, shouting at Lamont to try to hold Derry up.

'Niamh, pull yourself together,' she commanded. 'I need your help. Go find something to cut the rope. A knife, scissors, anything.'

Her words brought them back to their senses and Lamont sprang forward, grabbing Derry by his legs, trying to take his weight. Niamh started desperately pulling out drawers in the kitchen, scrabbling through them until she found a large knife. Sandra had an operator on speaker phone and was following the commands coming down the line. She picked up the chair lying on the floor next to where Derry was hanging and stood on it, grabbing the knife from Niamh and trying to reach the rope to cut it. She couldn't reach, though and looking around, shouted at Niamh to drag over the small kitchen table instead. Sandra went to climb on it, but Niamh stopped her.

'Give me the knife, I'm taller than you,' she said.

Sandra nodded and handed it over, jumping down to help Lamont who was shaking with the effort of trying to hold up Derry's weight and stop the terrible pressure of the rope on his neck. Palms sweating and shaking with sobs, Niamh clambered on to the table and began sawing desperately at the rope, trying not to look down at the unresponsive body below her.

'Hurry the fuck up,' swore Lamont, as she hacked through the strands of the jump rope. Finally it was done and Derry's body came lose, Sandra and Lamont buckling under the dead weight. The voice on the phone was telling them to lay him flat on his back and try to cut the rope from his neck. Lamont grabbed the knife and with a savage flick severed the rope, pulling it away from the ugly purple line around Derry's neck.

'Is the patient breathing?' asked the voice on the phone. 'Look to see if his chest is rising and falling.'

'I'm going to need you to initiate CPR,' the operator continued, urgently. 'Place one hand on the patient's chest, on the breastbone…'

The voice of the operator sounded fainter and fainter to Niamh, muffled by the rushing of blood in her ears. As if in a dream, she slid slowly off the table, watching Lamont leaning over his friend, his dark hands pumping desperately on Derry's white chest, the black swastika tattoo jolting obscenely with every compression. Everything seemed to be coming from far away and the room began to spin. She was aware of flashing lights, voices of paramedics running up the stairs and bags being ripped open, machines set up as they swarmed over him. She could hear equipment bleeping, air bags hissing, and a voice shouting 'clear'. Her consciousness seemed to be floating away, unmoored from her body as she watched Derry convulsing as the shocks ran through him, followed by the terrifying flat bleep of the paramedics' ECG.

Trying to escape the horror in front of her, her brain zoned in on the words of the song on the stereo and she remembered where she knew it from. It was Nina Simone's cover of the Jacques Brel song, Ne Me Quitte Pas. Derry had been playing it one day when she arrived to work and they had argued over it, Niamh declaring its untamed passion inferior to the polished beauty of Brel's original. As she listened through the fog of fear enveloping her, she numbly realised Derry had been right. Niamh just hadn't been able to appreciate the raw pain in the singer's voice before.

Niamh tried to stand up but as she did, a wave of heat spread through her body, engulfing her in darkness. The last thing she heard echoing through her brain before she lost consciousness was Nina's voice, cracking with uncried tears as she pleaded.

'Ne me quitte pas.

Ne me quitte pas.

Ne me quitte pas.'


	8. Chapter 8

**_What else could I write_**

 ** _I don't have the right_**

 ** _What else should I be_**

 ** _All apologies_**

 ** _Nirvana_**

 **** If you have come here expecting a new chapter in the story, I am sorry. This isn't a new chapter, but an explanation.**

 **Ironically, I started the last chapter with a trigger warning because of where the story was going, but what I hadn't realised was that I was the one who needed the warning.**

 **It wasn't until I read back over the last chapter after I had published it that it suddenly hit me what I had done. It's funny how the subconscious works, but somehow all the way through the writing of the story so far, I had completely failed to notice what it was I was doing. All the clues were there, I really should have been able to read them.**

 **A long time ago, something bad happened to someone very close to me. I don't want to use his real name, but let's call him Christos. It's a long and complicated story, but in essence it can be summed up in 3 lines:**

 **Christos loved me.**

 **I hurt him.**

 **He died.**

 **I have to write it like that as three separate sentences as the links between the three of them are too painful to think about.**

 **I met Christos at University. We had an amazing and immediate connection, even though we came from different backgrounds, countries, languages and social groupings. We loved to argue and he challenged me incessantly, teaching me to open my eyes to different perspectives on the world. He was tall and muscular, with short, dark hair and goatee. He played basketball and had tattoos – okay so they weren't swastikas and he had never been a neo-Nazi, but I think you see where this is going. On a date back in the late nineties we went to see a film called American History X.**

 **We had just started going out together – we had been close friends for 4 years, but I knew he had always wanted to be more than friends. I had just had my heart badly broken by someone else and was on the rebound, so convinced myself that the fact that I truly and deeply loved Christos as a friend was enough to build a relationship on.**

 **It wasn't.**

 **I realised soon after we got together that it wasn't going to work out. All his friends told me how happy he was and how he'd been in love with me for years and how amazing it was we'd finally gotten together. I tried so hard to love him the way he loved me, but in the end I couldn't.**

 **The last time we spoke he told me I had broken his heart. He went back to his country for the summer, leaving me a note telling me he hoped I would have a good life but that I wouldn't see him again. I knew he was angry, and as I was spending the summer working in a remote location overseas, I let him go, figuring I would see him in September and we would talk.**

 **I was away for 6 weeks in a remote village with no mobile phone or internet. On the day before I flew home, I travelled back to the city and made my way to an internet café to see what news there had been over the summer. I found a short, terse email from a friend of Christos telling me he was dead. I'd never met his family as they lived in a different country, and he was buried before I even knew he had gone. His friends didn't speak to me again and I didn't feel I had a right to try and reach out to them. 3 days after returning to my country, I started a new course, moved away from all the places Christos and I had been together, left behind anyone who knew us both and buried my grief. I couldn't talk about what had happened, I couldn't cope with the guilt and the pain so I made myself forget.**

 **Il faut oublier. Tout peut s'oublier.**

 **I really thought I had forgotten and haven't thought about him in years, but somehow my subconscious didn't forget and when I reread the last chapter it hit me like a freight train and I just sat and cried and cried. I cried for someone I had truly loved and lost, but who I didn't feel I had a right to say I missed. I cried for myself and the bad choices made and wished they could have been different. I cried for his family and friends who hadn't screwed him over like I had and who had to live with having lost him through no fault of their own.**

 **I know Derry and Niamh deserve a happy ending. Derry needs to live, they need to find a way through this, but right now I can't write it for them. Christos didn't get his happy ending and I will never be able to tell him I'm sorry.**

 **I hope one day I'll be able to write a different ending to this, but right now I can't.**

 **Sorry.****


End file.
